


Like a Step Falling through the Empty Air

by GuestPlease



Series: Follow the Spokes of the Wheel [7]
Category: Disenchantment (Cartoon 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, College student Bean, Does it count as character death if he's dead when the story starts?, F/M, Ghost Party!, I need to make that a Thing, I will add stuff as it comes up, I've stopped pretending this isn't based on my town, Kind of a mystery, Not my experiences though, Pining, RAF Pilot Pen, Sad boi Pen hours, Who knows where I am going with this? Not me, World War II, ghost au, he's dead though it's fine there are no weird age gaps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28082727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuestPlease/pseuds/GuestPlease
Summary: Pendergast is dead, and has been for about 70 odd years. However, instead of haunting where he died, he instead is stuck at a party he never wanted to be at in the first place.There is, however, something to be said for people watching-- particularly one of the university students, just across the street (and graveyard, and other street on the other side of the graveyard). Not in a creepy way, of course!After all, she doesn't even know he exists.
Relationships: Bean | Tiabeanie/Pendergast (Disenchantment)
Series: Follow the Spokes of the Wheel [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551175
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	Like a Step Falling through the Empty Air

It wasn’t a very good party.

To be fair, Pendergast hadn’t thought much of it the first time around either, when he was still alive, and so was everyone else.

Back, way back at the beginning of the war—The War—they had all striven desperately for some sense of normalcy and happiness. After all, soon they’d all be shipping out; Thomas and Luke to the infantry, David to the officer corps, Pendergast, Turbish and Mertz to the newly formed RAF. Sixteen-year-old Blodeuwedd had snuck in and drunk a glass of cheap wine, and had pulled her older brother into a dance, whirling around the floor.

Blodeuwedd wasn’t here anymore, and Pendergast was glad of that, at least. He didn’t know how any of this worked, and he wasn’t a religious man, but this seemed like some sort of purgatory. Thomas said they were stuck there because it was a last happy memory. Pendergast had replied that Anne Boleyn was said to be haunting the Tower of London, and she certainly wasn’t happy about _that_.

“Maybe we’re all just trying to recapture a last bit of normalcy before we can stomach the great beyond.” Thomas had said, pulling an ethereal, never diminishing, cigarette case out from his jacket pocket.   
“I could do it.” Pendergast had replied.   
“But you can’t.” Thomas had shot back, as the two brothers leaned out of the window and watched the humans walk around as dusk fell, once again, as it had done for years. “None of us can. So, really, what do you _want_ , Pendergast?”

“I want to be free of this place.” Pendergast had snarled.   
“It’s not such a bad thing, to be surrounded by people you love.” Thomas had shot a fond look back at Luke, who had been laughing with David. Again.   
Pendergast had watched, almost pained. Thomas had turned back to his younger brother, sought his face, and had sighed upon reading his expression. “You’re a damn fool, you know that?”

“What? Why am I a fool?” Pendergast had demanded at the time.   
Thomas had waved his hand, scattering sparks that disappeared from the air the next second. “You’re keeping yourself here because you want what I have with Luke.”   
“What? I don’t even _like_ men like that.” Pendergast had protested.   
“Not like that, you dumbass. You just want… someone.”   
“Tommy, I’m dead.” Pendergast had huffed. “Who am I going to find?”

And that had been that—which, at the time, had been the 1960s, over two decades after Pendergast’s _actual_ death. And that had turned to stubbornness over the fact that Thomas was right, and Pendergast didn’t want to admit it. There were nights when everyone else was faded and quiet, even for a while, and Pendergast seemed the most real, even if only to himself. There were nights when everyone else seemed more solid, more _alive_ , even as ghosts. On all of these nights, Pendergast tried to watch the humans.

The living ones, anyway. The Quakers were nice, they would come and putter around the graveyard that had been old before Pendergast’s time, directly in his line of sight. There were people, too, who lived across the street, across the graveyard. Then there was student housing for the brand new university, down by the Swan Pool. And a nursery, right next door. Winter was easier, because then he could crane his neck out the window and see tiny, swaddled bodies holding their parents’ hands as they walked away. Children were the most alive, and he ached for that. He ached for the father he could have been, if he hadn’t been shot down over the North Sea. If he hadn’t drowned, his foot caught in the wreckage of the plane, dragging him down.

He remembered his death. They all did. It simply wasn’t the _done_ thing to talk about it. So, he watched the living go about their lives, full of youth and potential. (Well, really, he had the youth. He had only been 22 when he had died.)

He had been watching students idly when he had noticed a girl with white hair and the brightest smile—illuminated by the street lamps—walk out of the Park Street Student Accommodation. He could almost make out her laugh.

Oh. Oh no. It would do absolutely no good to develop _feelings_ for the living, no matter what Thomas said. Besides, the absolute _best_ he could hope for was maybe three years of seeing her about, and then she’d leave the area.

And then he’d found out that she had a room overlooking the graveyard, on the student accommodation side. And that she was right across from his window, really, and that she had a habit of leaving her curtains open. At first he looked away—this was the _utmost_ invasion of privacy, living and dead or not. But occasionally, he would glance at her. (Her kitchen and communal area also overlooked the graveyard, which did nothing for his sense of personal honour. This is, however, a digression.)

Mostly, she’d be spinning on her office chair, or laughing at something on her… flat, bookish light-thing. Sometimes he would see her in the kitchen, smoke billowing out the window, or wheedling food from one of the other students sharing the flat. She liked the windows open, and he could hear snatches of music, of conversation, carried to him by the wind.

And once, watching her dance around the kitchen—well, not dance, mostly _spin_ —with the boy with unnatural green hair, laughing wildly, hair around her face. There were stains on her shirt from the sauce that the boy had painstakingly been trying to teach her to make, and a little bit on her face as well. She hadn’t showered for the night yet so her hair was a complete and utter mess even by her standards, and there were pillow indents from a nap she had had earlier.

She was utterly, wholly beautiful to him. And he had stood there, leaning on the windowsill, head in his hand and a goofy grin on his face, just watching her be happy.

Oh. Oh. _No_.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll get back to writing Fy Ngwraig... 
> 
> Soon. 
> 
> However, I felt I had to get this out first, so here we are! Now it's out.


End file.
